KARACHI: With the temperature rising and water supply decreasing, tanker operators have begun charging as much as Rs12,000 for a fill-up, pushing the city into a water crisis.

“These are not our tankers,” Mohammad Sharif, general secretary of the All Karachi Tankers Association, was quick to point out on Sunday.

“Earlier, the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board [KWSB] was closing down all the hydrants, including the subsoil hydrants, and the 12 remaining ones had such long queues that one tanker which used to make five to six trips to the hydrants could only have its fill once in 24 hours. So, to earn the same amount in a day, the tanker owner jacked up its cost.

“But now there is a new system with the hydrants being given their own 10 to 15 tankers. While the contract tankers queue up for their single turn, the hydrant owners’ tankers are making 16 to 18 rounds and even selling water for Rs15,000 per tanker in Defence and Clifton. As always with no water coming through the line, the people have no choice but to buy,” said Mohammad Sharif.

On April 30, KWSB MD Qutubuddin Shaikh retired from service and former commissioner of Karachi Hashim Raza Zaidi has been named as the new MD. The new MD is taking over as the KWSB’s head for a second time. He had earlier been there for a short stint, from Dec, 2014 to Feb, 2015. All attempts to reach the new MD on Sunday failed as his phone had been switched off.

The tankers association general secretary said it really didn’t matter who the MD was because the post was occupied by just a puppet playing in the hands of politicians. “The person in charge of the hydrants in Karachi is Rashid Siddiqui and he has his own union of some 200 tanker drivers and owners. The union is headed by someone named Ghulam Nabi. They answer to Sharjeel Memon,” Mohammad Sharif said.

“These 200 tankers are giving us a bad name. We feel we have no option but to go on strike now. We are 6,000 to 7,000 tankers and they only a couple of hundred. Then it will also be interesting to see how they manage the city with their 200 tankers,” he said.

“What can really help the city overcome its water woes is the Pakistan Rangers. It is our earnest request to the government to hand the management of all the legal hydrants here to the Pakistan Rangers.”

Sindh Minister for Information and Local Government Sharjeel Memon told Dawn that the KWSB had nothing to do with the tankers. The real problem of water scarcity in the city was the non-availability of enough water to meet the needs of the metropolis. He said the city needed 1000 million gallons of water daily (mgd), but it was getting only 550mgd from the Dhabeji pumping station. The other source of water was Hub from where Karachi earlier got 100mgd but the Hub source had been dry for over a year now. And until rains fell and filled the Hub dam, the water crisis would persist. “However, we are trying to get 65mgd additional water supply from Dhabeji to improve water supply to the city,” he said.

When his attention was drawn to the demand of the water tanker operators that the management of water hydrants be handed over to the Rangers, the minister said: “We have no objection to it if any institution can help improve water supply to the city.”

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2015

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